Haralabos VoulgarisLike his name, he did not go unnoticed in his time with the Dallas Mavericks. His presence as influential and close opinion of Mark Cuban, team president, raised blisters among the heavyweights of the sports organization chart.
Former Director of Quantitative Analysis and Franchise Development Texana left the team prior to the start of the 2021-2022 season following the end of her contract, and has now spoken on a podcast of the ESPN.
“A high school drama”. This is how the former manager defines in a moment of the interview with the Mavs of Luka doncic, with whom he had his pluses and minuses for reasons that he considers “silly stuff”.
Voulgaris explains an episode in which the Slovenian star began to yell at him in the middle of a match for some words that Cuban had actually addressed to him. “At that moment, perhaps for some other reason unknown to me, Luka decided he didn’t like it”, Explain. “Nobody told him that he had nothing against him because people were very carefulHe is the figure of the franchise and they treat him with delicacy. “
What hurt Voulgaris the most is that no one wanted to correct his problem with Doncic, whom he defines as a “great human being” and not at all “a diva” with the fame raised to the head. When one day Voulgaris rose from his seat and walked away in a loss to the Knicks, the Slovenian became angry again and accused him of leaving the team.
Voulgaris defended himself and said that he did what he always did: go analyze the data on his computer, try to help the team. “That this nonsense became something great made me think that it was not worth it for me,” he values in the podcast. “If I’m distracting that guy, I don’t need to be here.”
The Greek-Canadian analyst stopped attending the games and began working remotely, since Rick Carlisle wanted to continue to count on his services.
“If my goal had been to win ‘Game of Thrones’ I could have been smarter,” says Voulgaris. “My goal was to make the team better. “
The former executive does not leave the puppet with a head, and affirms that his position of preeminence with Mark Cuban generated envy among other leaders such as Donnie Nelson, General Manager of the franchise for more than two decades: “You listen to certain things, you know some facts and they explain to you others. Era a workplace with a lot of gossip, like a sewing circle. “
According to Voulgaris, in the Dallas offices each executive works on their own, independently of the rest: “I didn’t relate to others, and it got to the point of getting very strange … You have to be very good at keeping your job to be a general manager for so many years. “
In the end, neither Donnie Nelson nor Rick Carlisle they continued on the Mavs’ boat. Neither did Voulgaris. In summer, all the changes were framed in an effort by Cuban to convince Doncic to bet on Dallas long-term. And he did. Renewed for five years and more than 200 million dollars.
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